How to accelerate your development thanks to the strategic diagnosis?
Are you wondering how to accelerate your company’s development through strategic diagnosis? You may have heard of the strategic diagnosis approach, but still not be convinced that it corresponds to your company’s current situation and objectives. In this article, we will explain how strategic diagnosis can help grow your business by 2 to 10 times in just a few months.
What is a strategic diagnosis?
A diagnosis can be qualified as strategic if it reviews all the resources and competencies of a company, including its financial resources, human resources, industrial implementation, and technical expertise. Its objective is to identify strengths and weaknesses as well as growth opportunities and obstacles to growth. It is appropriate to call it a diagnosis because it involves grasping the full extent of the company’s situation at a given time, taking into account its clientele and competitive market. The diagnosis is strategic because it is part of a well-defined project, such as developing the company, restructuring it, or merging it with another company. The objective of a strategic diagnosis is always to improve the economic performance of the company and generate value for the organization, its shareholders, and its employees.
What are the components of a strategic diagnosis for a company?
When used to support a geographic growth project (region, country), a strategic diagnosis covers several areas. In addition to analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, as well as the company’s skills and capabilities, it is essential to analyze the target market to maximize your knowledge and understanding of the ecosystem in which the company will evolve. This includes potential customers, competition in your segment, or the market dynamics.
An assessment of the geographic presence of your current and potential customers should also be undertaken, and you should determine whether your value proposition will be the same in foreign markets or whether it needs to be modified, refined, or enhanced. The target market analysis also helps to identify potential future business partners and possible acquisition targets.
Finally, a visit to the target area (region, country) can be part of a strategic diagnosis to support a growth initiative because it allows you to appreciate the inevitable cultural differences (or at least to have a first overview) that will have to be addressed if you have any hope of success, and that will facilitate the subsequent choice of the most adapted growth plan.
The whole process results in a target area scorecard that is of crucial importance. Indeed, investing in a country that is not very eager for your products or services would clearly be a disastrous strategic misstep.
What is the difference with an internal strategic diagnosis for a company?
An internal diagnosis allows you to identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses while carefully dissecting your business model and your cost and revenue structure by analyzing your human, material and immaterial resources, including your reputation and brand image. The purpose of this exercise is to reveal, in a clear and unambiguous manner, the competitive advantages that you may be able to use as the foundation for your approach to growing your organization.
Specificities of the external strategic diagnosis for a company
The external diagnosis allows you to define the life cycle of your products or services by customer segment, to understand the expectations and selection criteria of your current and prospective customers, and to identify the opportunities and threats present in the company’s environment. For many companies, this second diagnosis is easier to perform.
But the best diagnosis will be a combined diagnosis (internal and external), carried out with the support of an external consultant who will be able to have a global vision of your development. Even though it is often neglected, an internal strategic diagnosis carried out with external support is an important management tool that allows the company’s management to appreciate the company’s growth strategy from a new angle and opens up new avenues of reflection.
Moreover, asking an external consultant to challenge your business plan (on its objectives and financial investments) is also an ideal way to reveal possible weaknesses or areas for improvement.
Finally, such a strategic diagnosis makes it possible to identify and clearly select the areas in which the company needs to be strengthened to attack the new target market (such as management, sales, marketing or HR).
In conclusion, it is important to remember that the result of a strategic diagnosis should not be just another report that leads nowhere; it must lead to concrete actions. An effective strategic diagnosis makes it possible to develop several tangible and executable scenarios for geographic or sectoral growth. As you have understood, a strategic diagnosis is essential to ensure that your decision to develop your company in another region, country or sector of activity is made with full knowledge of the facts and to achieve the desired success.